[From A Writer's Notebook, Doubleday & Company, 1949, “1941”, p. 347-8:]

I have just been reading again Russell's Our Knowledge of the External World. It may be that, as he says, philosophy doesn't offer, or attempt to offer, a solution of the problems of human destiny; it may be that it mustn't hope to find an answer to the practical problems of life; for philosophers have other fish to fry. But who then will tell us whether there is any sense in living and whether human existence is anything but a tragic – no, tragic is too noble a word – whether human existence is anything but a grotesque mischance?

[From The Summing Up, The Literary Guild of America, 1938, lxvi, 254-55:]

The pragmatists had vigour. They were very much alive. The most important of them wrote well, and they gave an appearance of simplicity to problems which I had not been able to make head or tail of. But much as I should have liked to I could not bring myself to believe, as they did, that truth is fashioned by us to meet our practical needs. The sense-datum, on which I thought all knowledge was based, seemed to me something given, which had to be accepted whether it suited the convenience or not. Nor did I feel comfortable with the argument that God existed if it consoled mc to believe that he did. The pragmatists ceased to interest me so much. I found Bergson good to read, but singularly unconvincing; nor did I find in Benedetto Croce anything to my purpose. On the other hand, in Bertrand Russell I discovered a writer who greatly pleased me; he was easy to understand and his English was good. I read him with admiration.

I was very willing to accept him as the guide I sought. He had worldly wisdom and common sense. He was tolerant of human weakness. But I discovered in time that he was a guide none too certain of the way. His mind was restless. He was like an architect who, when you want a house to live in, having persuaded you to build it of brick, then sets before you good reasons why it should be built of stone; but when you have agreed to this produces reasons just as good to prove that the only material to use is reinforced concrete. Meanwhile you have not a roof to your head. I was looking for a system of philosophy as coherent and self-contained as Bradley's, in which one part hung necessarily on another, so that nothing could be altered without the whole fabric falling to pieces. This Bertrand Russell could not give me.

[From Traveller’s Library, Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1933, p. 1167:]

A great mathematician, they say (for mathematics is a subject on which I am even less competent to speak than of any other) and a restless, nimble-witted philosopher, he writes with a lucidity that makes it easy to follow him even at his most abstruse. He is a proof that, however abstract your thought, if you know exactly what you mean you can say it in such a way that every intelligent person can understand you. Metaphysics is a subject that I can always read with pleasure, but I wish modern philosophers would take a leaf out of Lord Russell's book and learn to express themselves with distinction. The philosophers of the past did not disdain to write English with grace and whatever you think of Hobbes and Hume as philosophers you can still read their works with satisfaction for the excellence of their style. They portray themselves engagingly in their characteristic use of the language. In Lord Russell's essay entitled A Free Man's Worship there is a tragic beauty which I find deeply impressive.

[From “Looking Back”, Show Magazine, August 1962, pp. 72-73:]

Some years ago [1927] Bertrand Russell delivered a lecture which he afterwards published as a little book called “Why I Am Not a Christian.” I have the greatest admiration for Russell. He is eminent both as a mathematician and as a philosopher. Moreover he writes uncommonly good English. I found “Why I Am Not a Christian” disappointing. I think Russell is not fair to Jesus. “I am concerned,” he writes, “with Christ as he appears in the Gospels, taking the Gospel narrative as it stands.” That is natural enough since the Gospels are the only source from which anyone can learn anything about Jesus and His ministry. The Gospels were not written till some decades after the Crucifixion. […] The disciples of Jesus were not educated men; they were not even very intelligent. They were apt to squabble between themselves and to be envious of one another. Their merit was that they loved Jesus. It is strange to me that Bertrand Russell with his great intelligence should have accepted their testimony as, if I may put it so, gospel truth. I am inclined to think on the contrary that they were highly unreliable.

Now, every novelist knows that the one thing he may not do is to let the persons of his novel act out of character. How much more necessary is it to avoid this error when the writer is dealing not with fiction, but with what he claims is fact. There is a passage in St. Mark’s Gospel in which he relates how Jesus sent forth the disciples two by two. “And he said unto them, In what place soever ye enter into an house, there abide till ye depart from that place. And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when you depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day judgment, than for that city.” The threat is shocking. The householder might have had good reason to refuse the hospitality the two disciples demanded. There might have been illness in the house; he might not have had room or money to accommodate them; he might have been a pious Jew satisfied with the faith of his fathers. In any case the punishment does not fit the crime. It looks to me much more like an invention of the missionaries to assure themselves that they could count on board and lodging.

Bertrand Russell in this little book disparages Christ’s character. He blames Him for what would be grave faults if He were a divine being, omnipotent and omniscient, but which would be merely errors if He was no more than a man. If so, it is no defect in his character that He believed in hellfire. It was the current belief of the time and He could have doubted it as little as He doubted that the earth was flat. He certainly thought that His Second Coming would occur in clouds of glory before the death of the people who were living at that time. He was mistaken, but that was surely no defect of character. Further, Russell is shocked by Christ’s “vindictive fury” with those who would not listen to His teaching. That looks to me again as no more than an invention of the evangelists in face of persecution. It is out of character. The beauty of Christ’s character very plainly appears in the touching incident which is related by St. Mark. “And they brought young children to Him, that He should touch them: and His disciples rebuked them that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, He was much displeased and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God… And He took them up in His arms, put His hands upon them, and blessed them.” Jesus was a more charitable, compassionate and reasonable being than the evangelists knew.

[…]

Such of the disciples as had remained faithful to Jesus after the Crucifixion went out to preach the new faith, and it may be supposed that they used as the foundation of their message the material which is known as Q.[1] Now, everyone who is used to speak in public knows that there is no better way to enhance the interest of his audience than to tell a story. It would be only natural if the converts were more impressed by the stories of Christ’s miracles than by His doctrine. The preachers may well have thought to increase the power and glory of Jesus by ascribing to Him the power to perform them. But everyone who tells a story over and over again knows how apt he is to embroider on it to make it more effective and in the end there is little left of the incident that gave occasion to the story. The disciples were orientals, with the oriental’s disposition to exaggerate and it is likely enough that during the forty years that elapsed between the Crucifixion and the writing of St. Mark’s Gospel the incidents related came to be accepted as facts.

This of course is mere conjecture. It has a certain plausibility in the fact that Jesus was claimed to have performed two miracles which are little to his credit. One is the story of the swine. “Now there was there nigh unto the mountain a great head [sic] of swine feeding. And all the devils besought him, saying, ‘Send us into the swine that we may enter into them’ And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place… and were choked in the sea.” It is a horrible story. The other is that of the fig tree. It is told by Mark and repeated by Matthew. “And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, He was hungry: and seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, He came, if haply He might find anything thereon: and when He came to it, He found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet.” Jesus cursed the fig tree and it withered away. It was a peevish, petulant action which was surely not in the character of Jesus. The two stories reek of their untruth.[2]

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[1] Maugham mentions earlier this mysterious “collection of the sayings of Jesus” which is not known whether it was a written document or an oral testimony. Ed.
[2] Both are mentioned by Russell when he “disparages Christ’s character”. Ed.

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